Theme: Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

As we mentioned in the previous post, at Foundry Group we structure much of our investment analysis and thinking around themes. For us, a “thematic investment approach” is something broader than investing in market sectors, rather we look at the world in a horizontal fashion. A theme is applicable across consumer and enterprise customers, and is usually based on an underlying technology, protocol or broad market trend that we believe will drive investment opportunities for a five to ten year period as the familiar adoption/disruption dynamics play themselves out over time.

We tend to have half a dozen or so active themes at any given time that we will talk about on this blog. Some past (and current) examples of themes we’ve been active in include email, IT management, RSS and Implicit Web. One relatively new one that has been coalescing for us over the past couple years is the accelerating evolution of human computer interaction, or HCI.

Brad and I have written about HCI on our individual blogs numerous times in the past, and Brad already has a successful personal investment in the HCI theme under his belt via Harmonix Music Systems, the creators of the wildly popular Guitar Hero and Rock Band games. Additionally, in our Mobius VC portfolio, we have an investment in the world’s first single-chip digital silicon microphone company, called Akustica, which also fits into the HCI theme in the sense that their microphones help endow the computing environment with the sense of sound.

The basic premise underlying our enthusiasm for the HCI theme is that the world of computing is ripe for a series of major shifts in user-interface paradigms. We’ve all been living in a keyboard-mouse-windows-GUI world for the last twenty years, and this paradigm has been responsible for the massive success and near-ubiquity of the personal computer.

But with the proliferation of new devices with substantial compute power (the computational might of an iPhone would once have categorized it as a super computer) and new “senses” supplied by accelerometers, touch-screens, digital microphones, cameras, we now encounter computing devices in our cars, on our nightstands, in our pockets, in our stereo cabinet, in our conference rooms and factories, at kiosks and screens in the mall and many other places. In fact, a 2003 study suggests that the average American encounters at least 70 microprocessors in the course of a day.

While we consider billions of PCs and mobile phones to represent ubiquity, true ubiquity occurs when something is so commonplace, it fades into invisibility in the background. Some have dubbed this idea pervasive computing.

In an era of pervasive computing, it is very often undesirable or impossible to interact with a nearby computing device via a standard windows-based interface. (Especially if the device we are interacting with lacks a keyboard, mouse or display!). Thus we must be able to command our computers by touching their screens, simply gesturing to them, looking at them, speaking with them, or to get really sci-fi, by thinking at them. Freed from the confines of pointing and clicking on a two-dimensional screen to control our machines, we will see entirely new applications and capabilities emerge.

We can see current-day examples of these next-generation interface ideas embodied in the iPhone, Microsoft Surface Computing, the Nintendo Wii, GuitarHero/RockBand and many others. Notice that these innovations are applicable across numerous domains: mobile phones, enterprise computing and gaming. Any time we see an area with broad horizontal applications like this that runs across consumer and enterprise, we get excited because we smell “theme”. Furthermore, these innovations might live in software (applications or infrastructure), devices, services or combinations of any of these.

We’ve already made one investment in the HCI theme in a company called Oblong, which is commercializing the interface ideas seen in the movie Minority Report. The capabilities and application potential of Oblong’s platform are mind-blowing, and we will talk more about Oblong as they begin in the coming weeks and months to explain more fully to the outside world what they are up to.

In the meantime, consider this our announcement to the world that we’ve got the HCI religion and would love to hear from anyone else who does too…

Archives

Often we discuss a theme amongst ourselves for a long period of time based on our own judgments about market trends combined with judgments we draw from the types of deals we are seeing. Typically, after we get excited internally about a potential theme we then spend time looking for one or more initial investments that fit in that theme. We prefer to make multiple investments early on so we have a broader perspective on that theme’s ecosystem, though we usually don’t start talking publicly about a theme until we have one or two investments in the area because there are many cases where we might decide a theme is not worth pursuing after digging in for several months (or years in some cases).

Bruce

I love where HCI is headed these days. There's a part of me that gets a kick out of the almost zen-like nature of determining the interactions that are possible, or better yet, good in the first place — just watch the world and derive from what you see. Why abstract things when people have spent their whole lives figuring out how to use the world around them? It's silly not to capitalize on that investment of time.

The other cool thing is that when it works well, it's magic. People totally forget the technology because they're caught up in the goal of the experience — physically manipulating data, enlarging an image on an iPhone, even your car moving the seat and adjusting the climate controls when you unlock it. It's the sort of stuff that makes people smile with time not wasted on the *how* something works but just doing the thing.

It's one of those fields squarely sitting at this hugely fun intersection of design, art, technology, and experience. It's great to see this stuff come out of the movies and the media labs and finally into the real world where the rest of us can pound on it.

A good topic about hci, I still remember my gradulate life when my research topic is about HCI~~~

Asif

HCI is gaining popularity

todd

I think HCI also addresses how computers can be used to solve problems not addressed before with computers in an organized and measurable way! Think of congnitive disorders..even training athletes in new ways. Oblong's and others' technology could be licensed, etc…. more on this later

Coming from the world of HCI, with our product https://www.voiceboard.info I admit it’s an exciting era to live in as pervasive computing will gradually become the mainstay of our technology interactions. Well written article, thanks @ryan_mcintyre:disqus

Adam Cohen

Interesting to see your HCI portfolio revolve primarily around hardware at this point. The question becomes what do you do with the data that’s collected by sensor technology?

That’s what we’re addressing @SKUR_Inc for the construction and facilities management markets, providing value to LiDAR and other remote sensors to develop quantitative and actionable analytics for a variety of project constituents.

Sensors become a commodity, visual analysis is limited by human capabilities, machine learning will bring immense value to data and dive automation as we transition from big data to big analytics.